FLIR thermal camera

The Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College, London, has chosen to use a FLIR Systems X6540sc thermal imaging camera to conduct innovative heat transfer experiments on thin film flows. Studying heat transfer in thin film flows is the key to enable the accurate prediction of complex hydrodynamic processes, crucial for the design of many engineering systems that rely on these flows.

Research in the Clean Energy Processes group at Imperial is aimed at the development and employment of new imaging techniques for conducting simultaneous spatiotemporal measurements of thickness, velocity, temperature and heat flux in thin film flows. Apart from the purely theoretical interest, the high surface to volume ration and small heat and mass transfer resistances of thin films at relatively small flow rates renders them instrumental in the development of efficient means of heat and mass transfer. Consequently, thin film flows are employed in a wide variety of engineering/technological applications, such as evaporators, exchangers, absorbers, micro reactors, thermal management/human support systems in space applications, small scale electronics microprocessor cooling schemes, air conditioning and gas turbine blade cooling.

Specifications

The X6540sc thermal imaging camera provides ultra fast frame rate acquisition for scientific and research applications involving dynamic thermal events. The device features a 640x512 digital InSb detector with spectral sensitivity from 1.5 – 5.5 UM and a f/3 aperture. It provides images up to 125 Hz in full frame and up to 4011 Hz in a 64 x 8 subwindowing mode. Features on this research grade camera include high thermal sensitivity, snapshot imagery, a motorised spectral filter wheel and a detachable touch screen LCD.